Page:Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1904).djvu/38

 tobacco which generally disappeared by the time his next visit came about. A good many of the visitors to Cheyne Walk were smokers, and if their own stock ran short, William Michael Rossetti's was usually drawn upon. The box itself was a bit of 18th century pewter work, four-square shaped, designed in high relief with sporting and rural scenes. I always intended to make a cast of it for my own use, and as a memento of the house, but never did so.

Rossetti's fancy for collecting old blue Nankin and other china was just at this time in full swing. James McNeil Whistler33 had set the example with his "Long Elizas,"34 and was closely followed by Rossetti and Howell. Each tried to outvie the other in picking up the choicest pieces of "Blue" to be met with. A pair of splendid blue hawthorn ginger pots stood on a table in the studio. These were not the first ginger pots I had seen; I recollect that when a boy they were common enough—of course, not such magnificent specimens as these were, but very good ones—although they were then thought very little of, and many a one such as would fetch ten or fifteen shillings now were given away to anybody who chose to ask for them. The two hawthorn pots in question were certainly beautiful, and exquisite in their blue and design, nevertheless when Rossetti informed me he had paid sixty pounds each for them, I confess I was astounded. The investment, however, proved a good one, as some time later, when money